As Osian’s celebrates Romanian Cinema, Saurabh Kumar Shahi analyses the emergence of New Wave cinema in the erstwhile Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe.
Alistair Whyte’s 1971 monograph, “New Cinema in Eastern Europe”,
dedicated merely two lines to Romania Cinema, one of which emphasised that the Communist nation had “produced some interesting cartoons but in the field of feature film there has been little of importance.” Now every critic worth his salt can tell you that in critics’ lexicon, ‘Little’ means “even if there was a bit, I didn’t notice it.”
Last week Osian’s Cine Fan celebrated the best of contemporary Romanian Cinema. We’ll take just two examples to illustrate why Romanian Cinema is being pegged as the “next big thing” in the European film circuit. “Politist, Adjectiv” (Police, Adjective), “Cea Mai Fericita Fata Din Lume” (The Happiest Girl in the World) are worth examining.
Like Corneliu Porumboiu’s last masterpiece “12:08 East Of Bucharest” that won rave reviews all across, “Politist, Adjectiv” picks the nuances and incidents and sardonically manipulates it to elicit laughs. It tracks a policeman in real time as he goes about his duty that includes following a teenager he has, in the past, seen offering a mate some hashish. It’s a standard police routine but the audience is kept completely in the dark about its possible climax. The cop turns down his senior’s instructions to bust the teenager as he does not find it worthwhile enough to ruin the life of a promising young man over what he deems a harmless act. The shocker finale dramatically reinterprets the thesaurus descriptions of “police,” “scruples” and “law.” The smart minimalism of the visual speech brings in the viewer’s imagination into play; there is no distracting music. The camera’s visual jugglery seldom jumps the boundary of a horizontal pan; the essential dialogues squander no words.
On the other hand, “The Happiest Girl in the World” is a personal story. After bagging a free car in a publicity bonanza, a deprived provincial teen discovers it comes with a heavy price tag. Similar to the works of Porumboiu, this feature debut by Radu Jude is hyperrealist in manner, with a brusquely experiential screenplay. The girl wants the car but her bossy parents resort to emotional blackmail to force her to sell it. One can not help but respect the clever way in which Jude makes use of contrast all through to suggest countless things about present-day Romania. Devoid of ethical conclusions, he assertively applies the diverse familiarities and outlook of the age groups and the discrepancy between big-city erudition and small-town parochialism. This captures the undercurrents of a nation where the communist past and capitalist present nervously coexist.
A mere look at the kind of flicks that has come out of Romania in the last decade confirms that a new crop of directors and screenwriters are hitting its stride. Many of these internationally acclaimed prize-winning features have been directed and written by people in their 20s and 30s; they are passionate, resolute and made on shoe-string budgets. These productions portray the unpretentious realism of the “transition” epoch. They focus on recognisable characters in identifiable conditions, where Romanian audience in particular and Eastern European people in general can place themselves. Catastrophe and sarcasm are part of their ethical and artistic arsenal.
They mirror an evaluation of the socio-economic and personal relations that evolve under the fresh onslaught of capitalism.
Alistair Whyte’s 1971 monograph, “New Cinema in Eastern Europe”,
dedicated merely two lines to Romania Cinema, one of which emphasised that the Communist nation had “produced some interesting cartoons but in the field of feature film there has been little of importance.” Now every critic worth his salt can tell you that in critics’ lexicon, ‘Little’ means “even if there was a bit, I didn’t notice it.”Last week Osian’s Cine Fan celebrated the best of contemporary Romanian Cinema. We’ll take just two examples to illustrate why Romanian Cinema is being pegged as the “next big thing” in the European film circuit. “Politist, Adjectiv” (Police, Adjective), “Cea Mai Fericita Fata Din Lume” (The Happiest Girl in the World) are worth examining.
Like Corneliu Porumboiu’s last masterpiece “12:08 East Of Bucharest” that won rave reviews all across, “Politist, Adjectiv” picks the nuances and incidents and sardonically manipulates it to elicit laughs. It tracks a policeman in real time as he goes about his duty that includes following a teenager he has, in the past, seen offering a mate some hashish. It’s a standard police routine but the audience is kept completely in the dark about its possible climax. The cop turns down his senior’s instructions to bust the teenager as he does not find it worthwhile enough to ruin the life of a promising young man over what he deems a harmless act. The shocker finale dramatically reinterprets the thesaurus descriptions of “police,” “scruples” and “law.” The smart minimalism of the visual speech brings in the viewer’s imagination into play; there is no distracting music. The camera’s visual jugglery seldom jumps the boundary of a horizontal pan; the essential dialogues squander no words.
On the other hand, “The Happiest Girl in the World” is a personal story. After bagging a free car in a publicity bonanza, a deprived provincial teen discovers it comes with a heavy price tag. Similar to the works of Porumboiu, this feature debut by Radu Jude is hyperrealist in manner, with a brusquely experiential screenplay. The girl wants the car but her bossy parents resort to emotional blackmail to force her to sell it. One can not help but respect the clever way in which Jude makes use of contrast all through to suggest countless things about present-day Romania. Devoid of ethical conclusions, he assertively applies the diverse familiarities and outlook of the age groups and the discrepancy between big-city erudition and small-town parochialism. This captures the undercurrents of a nation where the communist past and capitalist present nervously coexist.
A mere look at the kind of flicks that has come out of Romania in the last decade confirms that a new crop of directors and screenwriters are hitting its stride. Many of these internationally acclaimed prize-winning features have been directed and written by people in their 20s and 30s; they are passionate, resolute and made on shoe-string budgets. These productions portray the unpretentious realism of the “transition” epoch. They focus on recognisable characters in identifiable conditions, where Romanian audience in particular and Eastern European people in general can place themselves. Catastrophe and sarcasm are part of their ethical and artistic arsenal.
They mirror an evaluation of the socio-economic and personal relations that evolve under the fresh onslaught of capitalism.
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